Google Translate app updated with offline support

An update to the Google Translate app for Android is going out today, adding support for offline translations for fifty languages. It's a big upgrade for Google Translate, which until now has required an internet connection. (We all know how expensive international roaming can be.)

The new version supports Android 2.3 Gingerbread and above, and languages can be downloaded from the new "Offline languages" menu. A word of warning -- downloading an entire language to your phone takes just as much space as you'd imagine. With only English and German installed, we'd already taken up a hefty 280MB of internal storage.

There are also some limitations to offline mode -- it's currently text-only, so voice translation and image translation don't work offline.

If you've already got Google Translate installed, hit the Play Store to get the latest update. If not, you can use the handy Google Play link above.

Google Translate app updated with offline support

and..... that means you're required to either connect to a wifi network OR connect to your phone and use your data package (which unless you're using the expensive unlimited data plans..... is NOT worth it) this means that it's still rather worthless, and if you travel a lot for your business and your company doesn't provide the unlimited data package.... you're rather screwed

This update just destroyed the stability of my Galaxy Nexus, for some unknown reason. I'm actually in the process of restoring a nandroid backup, it's that bad.

I downloaded the update: fine.

I went to install 2 language packs: seemed ok at first.

Sadly I was on our office's godawful wifi, and 90 minutes later I realized it was still struggling with the second ~200MB download. I had to leave the office and usually throw my phone on airplane mode when I do (subway -- no reception, phone kills its own battery trying to get a signal). I hit airplane mode and the notification bar still showed the download as active, and the phone was sluggish as hell.

Assuming it's an in-app download (since tapping the download notification takes me into the app) I eventually managed to convince it to switch back to the Google Translate app, uncheck the language packs, and watched it tell me it had removed them... and it's STILL sluggish as hell and trying to download the second pack.

Reboot: still trying to download.

Force Close the app: still trying to download.

Uninstall the app: still trying to download.

Reboot again: still trying to download.

[Edit to add: actually there were a couple of battery pulls in that time, too. That's how unresponsive things were getting.]

Finally (yes, finally >< ) it dawned on me that the download was entirely external, so I killed it via the Downloads folder. Whew!

... except the phone was STILL sluggish as hell.

And then I realized other apps were becoming unresponsive: Franco's Updater refuses to let me access power profiles and other settings, for example, and even the dialer was acting up. Fix permissions and yet another reboot still fix nothing.

Fortunately Titanium Backup is behaving, so I just finished a full backup there and I'm going through a full nandroid restore now just to get back to a solid base, because I need the phone working in an hour or so and don't have the time to faff around troubleshooting further. Urgh! Bad Google, bad!

I did not apply this update. This update is asking for a new permission: "To Add or remove accounts, use accounts on the device". There is nothing on "What's New" section for this update to explain why.

I have a noticed something strange and would like to know if I am the only one...

I have installed the English and Chinese offline language packs. They work fine as long as I have an Internet connection. However, when my Internet connection is down it complains and refuses to translate.

I double checked to see if the language packs where indeed on my phone and where also enabled in Google translation (and they where). It seems like the Google Translation app still needs an Internet connection available - perhaps not for the actual dictionaries but perhaps for other issues - and when it can't connect it refuses to translate.

I have the same problem. It seems the offline version only works if you're in airplane mode. The app will not work if you're connected to any cell network even if you have no data plan. Either a design oversight, or meant to inconvenient the user having to turn airplane mode on and off to use it.

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